Things Change

It's been a while since I posted anything on here. I apologise for that - I know you must all be waiting with bated breath... Well, perhaps not, but I apologise nonetheless.

There have been quite a few changes in my life in the last few months. Perhaps the most fundamental of these was that my grandmother died at the end of February. Long-time readers of this blog will recall our stresses moving her from her home to sheltered accommodation to one residential home and, finally, to another. She settled there at least, and the staff were brilliant. When the end came, that plucky old lady survived for a week without food or water, just lying there in her bed listening to Radio 3. She slipped away with one of her best friends by her side and, honestly, it was time. I owe a lot to that little old lady, I really do. I wouldn't have my MA or my PhD if it wasn't for her support, and one of my most vivid memories of recent years is telling her I was now 'Dr Lucy Brown'. That expression of delight will stay with me forever.

Along with Grandma, other things have changed. While I'm still interested in pursuing an academic career at some point, I've come to accept that I'm not ready for that. I need to concentrate on staying healthy and looking after myself. I'm not the first to conclude that academia isn't conducive to that! So what am I doing instead? Well, I've turbo-charged the freelance work I was doing before into something akin to a proper job - with caveats.

I've acquired several ongoing clients who are currently bringing me in a steady income. However, I'm not actively touting for extra work right now. I'm in the very fortunate situation of not needing to bring in a living wage, thanks to living with my father and therefore not having those pesky bills that everyone else has to deal with. This gives me the opportunity to keep my freelance workload manageable and focus on other things as well.

Top of this list is, naturally, my fiction. Expect an update on my projected timetables over the next few weeks but I'm cracking on with the 12 (!) novel drafts in various stages of completion and rewriting that I've got in the bank. They're not going anywhere till I'm happy with them and, fortunately, the freelance work gives me the chance to continue working on them properly.

I'm on a good path at the moment and there are other things in the pipeline too. Let's see how it plays out, shall we?

Quite a Week

To say last week was interesting would be a bit of an understatement. I'm used to the ups and downs that life (and my anxiety problems) tend to throw at me but I rarely have as many blips, bumps and jumps in one short period as I did last week.

My Monday began with computer problems and rapidly escalated with some frustrating family stuff. I escaped to my writing haunt and had a burst of inspiration about the direction of my WIP (I wrote about that here). By the time I got home I was all energised then there was some more family stuff that triggered this response:

In the last half an hour I got inspired and optimistic. Then someone dropped a house on my head. Back to square one.

— Dr Lucy Brown (@CharmedLassie) November 23, 2015

On Tuesday I had the delight of a few hours to myself then it all fell apart again. Normality ensued as I dragged myself in the rain to get some shopping whilst having a mini panic attack. However, as I was walking home I received a text from a Yorkshire First colleague of mine about the meeting later that night and I was back in positive mode. That meeting was excellent and I came away as energised politically as I had been in the creative sense the day before:

One thing I do appreciate about the meetings, though, is that I morph into a confident human being who can hold a conversation.

— Dr Lucy Brown (@CharmedLassie) November 24, 2015

For me, that's pretty successful. So, despite a concerted effort by some people in my life to bring me down, I prolonged my positive mood into Wednesday - then the fun really started when I went to co-working at my writing haunt. Hearing "that's not a customer, that's Lucy, she's part of the furniture" set things up nicely along with an epic breakfast. I was in the writing zone anyway but getting an email confirming that I'd won third prize in the latest Fabula Press competition set me singing in public. That story will be published at some point so I'll let you know when it's available but it's one I'm very proud of.

I dragged my father to a couple of stops on the Artwalk that night, which I thoroughly enjoyed (and picked up a couple of souvenirs below), then came home for a celebratory singalong. Treating myself after every bit of success is proving to be very pleasant and reminds me that I'm probably not completely rubbish.

On Thursday I was meant to be having a freelance meeting but that turned into a six-hour meeting interspersed with checking on a poorly six-year niece. Making her smile was more important than any work, though some of that got done as well. The night ending with me tipping a bucket of filthy water over my legs wasn't the best thing that could've happened however. My trainers still stink.

Then Friday... Well, I'd just sat down to lunch when I heard that my grandmother had fallen face-first out of her chair at her residential home and was bleeding quite badly. They called an ambulance and, while the details of what happened that day aren't something I should share on a public forum, suffice to say there'll be a complaint going in to the NHS about the treatment. Fortunately, she's going to be okay, even if she looks like someone ran her over and she's got a broken cheekbone. At 92, she should really know better than to chuck herself over the room like that. It certainly gave us all a scare and, as a consequence, I spent the weekend hibernating and watching tennis. Britain winning the Davis Cup was the appropriate end to a wacky week.

I'm drowning in work this week and my priorities are all over the place. A little stability and time to work without the bumps and jumps would be a good idea. Then again, I did rather enjoy last Wednesday immensely. I'd better write some more short stories, huh?

Blogging NaNoWriMo 2014: Draft Complete

Due to a sudden burst of determination, I completed my NaNoWriMo draft within November, with it coming in at 59,325 words, 3,541 of those written last night. Most of those, to be fair, were written during a rushed hour where my determination overtook my sense and I just had to finish it by the arbitrary deadline.

Overall, this goes down as another successful NaNo, though it still doesn't feel that way. However, it's another first draft in the can and I already have ideas about the alterations which need to be made. One of my secondary characters flip-flops throughout the novel and I need to work out how accurate that is or whether she was just dancing to my tune. As well as that, some of the care home residents emerged as much stronger characters than I'd anticipated and I should really cling onto them in the second draft. More about my future writing plans later in the week though.

November was tricky, as I knew it would be. I haven't been feeling very bright and most days I've either burst into tears or sat staring despondent at the wall for an hour. Add to that the fact that I've been battling with the final edits of my thesis for the last two weeks and you've got a pretty draining month. I spent most of last week in a cafe with a 190 page thesis and marker pen in front of me because doing that work at home with my father still off sick from work is nigh on impossible. This blog has suffered this month, I've got some freelancing work ongoing and there's some proofreading I need to do for something else which I'll tell you all about shortly. When I see it written down like that, I'm not surprised I've woken up to the first day of December with a stonking headache. Nevertheless, I won... Here's my celebratory banner and one of my favourite songs of the moment, guaranteed to make me sing and smile - for a few minutes at least.

Grandmother Difficulties

Yesterday was lousy for so many reasons but perhaps the one that will linger longest is the Wednesday grandmother visit. In the middle of January I wrote about how she wasn't really settling into her new home because what she has an issue with is the idea of being in a home, despite the fact it's a very good one. Since then, things have been a little more even. She was still miserable and moaning but she wasn't crying - I took that as a good sign. Last night all that changed.

When we arrived she was sitting in the alcove by the door. We keyed in the code and the moment the door was open she started wailing. I mean that in the most literal sense - it was nothing short of hysterical. For a while we couldn't get any sense out of her. She was disparaging the staff very loudly ("oh, her, she's not a good one") and screaming "go away" at another resident who stopped to watch the hysterics. When that woman reappeared a few minutes later my grandmother warned her, again very loudly, that if she didn't go away she was going to "clunk" her. I assume the weapon of choice would've been her walking frame, which could've caused quite a bit of damage to the little old lady. All the time, my grandmother's weeping, asking us to "do her in" and generally making no sense.

The story, when we finally got it, seemed to be this. For weeks she's been pestering my aunt to take her to a hairdresser she likes. She doesn't want to look like the rest of the permed women, she says, and she's got a long-standing relationship with this stylist. So my aunt has arranged it for Friday. The trouble is, I don't know what she told my grandmother but at 6:00pm on Wednesday evening she was sat in the lobby afraid that it was "too late" to go to bed because my aunt would be coming. I think this was the trigger for something else, something that's been building since she moved in there. What hasn't helped is that she had an accident a couple of weeks ago when she tried to avoid disturbing the staff by stepping over the pressure pad in the middle of the night and consequently going face first into the bedside cabinet. She has a black eye and a damaged shoulder which can't be helping her mood.

The half an hour visit was just a nightmare. We couldn't get her to calm down and she kept insulting the staff. My father threatened to walk out, which I gently said was not a good idea: it would've left her in a worse state and that wasn't fair on anyone. But then she started troubling the woman who was delivering the pills about the bathroom and my father insisted on making a break for it. Who knows what we left the staff with?

I hate that she's so miserable but, like I said before, there's nothing we can do about it. This is what she chose and her care needs now make other options redundant. But screaming at the staff and other residents is so unlike her, it's alarming. And this talk of suicide is getting more and more frequent. I know the staff there are good but they can't watch her every minute. All it would take is one staircase and there are two near her room... I don't know what we can do. And while it's probably more irritating my father and aunt more than anything else, it's physically hurting me. I got home last night and wept myself. It's a nice circle me and my grandmother are going round, isn't it?

Busy, Busy

Apologies for the lack of activity on here this week. 'Hectic' pretty much covers it, and not really the kind of hectic that makes for engaging blog posts. Haven't finished any books, haven't watched any classic films - actually the only things I've really watched are odd episodes of Coronation Street while I eat. The most frustrating thing of all was that this week most things I'd been working towards fell apart. Deadlines were shifted: great, you say, but not when I've worked myself into a really bad state already to get something fit for that deadline. Plans were altered, giving me a weekend to myself but, honestly, I'm just annoyed that people keep moving the damn goalposts. I like to know where I am and this week has offered anything but that.

On Monday my father took a day off work so we could take my grandmother to the bank - why is it when you're 90, institutions like banks insist on dragging you in to request a simple chequebook because you can't use the phone and they don't seem to be able to deal with a power of attorney form? As ever, my grandmother lingered at the counter to tell everyone I was her daughter. Really, if it looks like that is the case I want to sue my genes; no offence, Gran.

The rest of Monday was thesis grind. Tuesday was also thesis grind with a little interlude for the gym to stop me breaking my computer. Then, having got to midnight, I switched into writing mode to work on a script extract I'd decided I needed to rewrite before I submitted it (and I needed to submit it fast). On Wednesday I got the news that my supervisor meeting had been cancelled so there no need to me to zombify myself over the last few days. Instead of rushing to complete the chapter as I'd intended, I did an afternoon of biography work, my effort to make sure that the groundwork of my thesis is solid and that I haven't got any Wilkie Collins information wrong. Then my evening was spent finishing up the play extract, getting it polished for submission and packaging it up. Another night when I said hello to 2am.

Thursday was a day of contrasts. In spite of my supervisor meeting being cancelled, I had to travel to university to return a book someone had requested. If that sounds like I'm a little bitter...well, I was. If I'd known my meeting was cancelled earlier I might have arranged my whole week so my head wasn't buzzing constantly. However, Thursday was lightened by a short spell looking after my twin nieces (who are five this month, unbelievably). Watching Matilda with one little girl who was trying to make herself vomit by swirling around and another one who wanted to tell me everything that was happening before it happened, and as though I'd never seen it in my life, was rather delightful. When I got back I decided to take a final run at that thesis chapter and, around 1am, the draft was finished. The fact that it's of an epic length doesn't really bother me at the moment. I'm taking a short hiatus.

The unexpected freeing up of my weekend, coupled with my determination to get that work done last night, has given me a rare opportunity - a weekend where three straight days can be devoted to writing. I'm switching projects again, though merely because I'm submitting an extract of one novel in a few weeks and I need the rest to be of a decent standard in the near future. It's not me flitting around aimlessly from project to project (the thing I've vowed against this year) but a necessary alteration in path. Unfortunately, as 'Liz' takes priority, 'Lauren' will have to shrink back into the woodwork for a while. Frustrating, since we were getting somewhere.

Still, a weekend of writing with some fantastic films as rewards? Not shabby. I'm thinking of a Cary Grant double-bill: Monkey Business with Ginger Rogers and Bringing Up Baby with Katharine Hepburn. You don't get much funnier than that.

And that, dear readers, is what I've been up to this week.

Grandmother Update: Head, Meet Brick Wall

The last time I wrote about my grandmother on this blog was at the beginning of December. She'd moved into a shabby residential home and hated it - as did I. However, at the beginning of January, a place 'became available' at the home she'd always wanted to move into. It was the one we drove past every Saturday and she said, 'people say that's very good, you know, why can't I move in there?' We'd had her on the waiting list for months and she duly moved in.

The good news? The place is beautiful. Whereas everything about the other home was dank and shabby, this one is lovely. They're doing lots of work to it and they've just had an extension built; a conservatory with two flat-screen televisions, high-quality armchairs and some dining tables. Her room - admittedly, it's a bit far for her to come and go and involves four steps, but they will move her as soon as a better location becomes available - is ideal. Three chairs, lots of natural light, a view of the park in the distance: there's not much in there to gripe about. The food is excellent and, plus, the staff are wonderful. On our first visit I made a point of asking their opinion on how she was settling in so, on our third visit, four (?!) of them had a candid discussion with us about how she was getting on. The level of interest and friendliness is astounding and, really, I couldn't think of a nicer place for her to be.

So what's the bad news? Well, she still hates it.

Yesterday we got tears unlike any we've encountered before. She's sat in this beautiful conservatory loudly proclaiming the place to be 'hell'. And, unfortunately, my patience has worn thin. She was the one pressing to go into a home, making residents at her sheltered accommodation clamour for it. I knew how she would take it and I did my best to persuade her of the truth but to no avail. Now she's in a home, there's no getting her out and, honestly, if she's going to be anywhere, this place is the one to be in. But she doesn't see it like that.

I think I can pinpoint some of her problems. She falls apart without a routine and claims she 'never knows what she's doing'. Yesterday she claimed she had dinner at breakfast time which is, quite frankly, rubbish. The home tries to be flexible with the residents but not that flexible! The trouble is, of course, that when you're ninety and in a home, there's not much to do especially when you won't watch television, read anything apart from your paper or take part in the activities arranged. She just seems to sit with two women who are grouchy (and rather bitchy) being miserable all the time.

I know I sound heartless. Believe me, I'm not. I just think that this is the situation she wanted, the situation she deliberately put herself into, despite all warnings. There is no alternative now and, to be perfectly honest, it's not a bad way to spend your later years. She has to learn to reconcile herself to it or she's going to drive us away. I think the problem is that she only really cries in front of me and my dad - we get the misery and very little else. It's unpleasant all round and yesterday it quite upset me.

I've really tried to be a good granddaughter but I've had eighteen months of my own 'hell' trying to deal with her. From twenty five phone calls in a day to a home where she's utterly miserable, with reason, to this one where she's utterly miserable, without reason. I don't know what else I can do but twice weekly visits will soon push me to the edge. This should be about her - and it is - but I can't help worrying about the impact it's having on me. Selfish, I know, but I'm only human.

Faces of Anxiety

I would never have walked into my old office singing songs from On the Town (I waited until I was shut in the scanning room and then sang to relieve the monotony). Nor would I sit down with my four year old nieces and be a miserable old harridan who isn't much fun. The fact that different faces are required for different parts of your life is inevitable. Something I've realised, though, is that these 'faces' are the reason my anxiety's permeated every aspect of my life. There is barely a person alive I'm not putting a mask on in front of, very few people who could, if you'd like, appear on Mastermind with me as their specialist subject. Probably the ones who think they could are the ones who'd be forced to make up ground in the general knowledge section. What it comes down to is the toll this takes on someone. I freely admit I've always been a bit of a wimp so maybe this is something that affects me disproportionately.

The root of my anxiety is 'doing something wrong'. There are many reasons that's developed, none of which I'll bore you with, but the fact is that it remains an everyday problem. Not just when I step into the outside world either. If you're having to watch every word you speak, type or text all day, every day the default position becomes defence. You become insulated, isolated. You're so busy wondering what you said to whom and was that right and what if it wasn't and what are you going to say next that each day becomes a bit of a slog. And, yet, without communicating with people, online or otherwise, life quickly becomes a little drab. It's a conundrum, and one I really haven't grappled with until now.

Is there a solution? Do I try and stop being a different person to everybody in my life? That would require some home truths and I'm a wimp remember. But this policy of remembering who I am in every conversation, of remembering the boundaries and the masks, is growing heavier by the day. Perhaps it's no wonder I take refuge in fiction...

Grandmother Misery

In the middle of October the 'family' (if you can call us that in any sense of the word) finally relented and put my grandmother in a residential home. It was against my wishes and, to make things worse, during the actual transition I was away on holiday. I said at the time that I didn't want to be proven right but I couldn't help believing it would make her more unhappy. Well, I have been proven right.

I think the home is shabby but, then, it was only ever picked for proximity to one side of the family and had bugger all to do with what was best for her. The home that my grandmother wanted is currently undergoing renovation work to build an extension. The capacity will no doubt be increased and she's already at the top of the list so she should be able to move there - in April/May. I'm not holding out hope for her lasting that long.

80% of my visits have been soul-destroying. What happens is, we ring the bell and sign in. My dad signals my grandmother in the lounge and she slowly makes her way across to us. Then we head down a long corridor to her room. What happens in that corridor is that she starts sobbing and continues sobbing all the way down to her room. Then she collapses in her chair and sobs some more. When we finally get words out of her, it all boils down to the same thing - she hates that place. As I knew she would. Being right doesn't feel good in this case; it feels downright awful.

So what does she hate? Well, let's start with the physical aspects of the home. Her room is shabby with peeling paint and a lack of hot water at the sink unit. There's also a draught at the window, which they overcompensate for by turning the heat up to tranquilliser levels. More problematic is the fact that this place isn't en-suite (something me and my father were determined on for her privacy). There's a toilet nearby but they're more than happy to make her use the commode, which they then proceed to leave for hours. They're storing things in her room, hoists and the like (and, yes, I trust her on this one, because I've seen the rest of the place). The food isn't up to much and they're not giving her enough - for a small woman she's always eaten lots and the weight is literally dropping off her. She doesn't seem to be getting enough water either - the problem with her dry lips is back with a vengeance after we'd almost fixed it.

There are other things that are getting her down. We went one day last week to find her soggy trousers that no one had tried to change her out of. The way she took this suggested to me it wasn't the first time that had happened. The staff to resident ratio seems to be lacking too. There's a man two doors down from her who wails for staff for ages (something else I've experienced first-hand) and they've had a couple of women with Alzheimer's who haven't been supervised properly. The first one, there on respite, was regularly going into rooms and taking things, including a picture of my late uncle's wedding and two stones, about the only things of emotional value she's got in there. Again, I witnessed this first-hand. The second woman with Alzheimer's seems to enjoy watching people getting undressed and this has upset my grandmother. My question is - are the carers not shutting the door or are they just not stopping the woman getting in? I think there needs to be a closer focus on high-dependency residents, for the sake of all.

It's not the end of the list by any means but it'll do for now. It's all conspired to make her utterly miserable and there's bugger all I can do about it. She found out the other day that my dad and my aunt have to 'get her out' if she wants to leave (am I the only one getting shades of a Victorian asylum with this place?). While I can exert pressure on my dad to try and locate another, less shabby place, my aunt is having none of it. My grandmother says she literally turns her back on her when she tries to discuss it. How the hell can you have that attitude to someone who so obviously suffering? My grandmother told me the other day that when she realised this was it until the end of her life, she couldn't take it. Neither can I, in all honesty.

Blogging NaNoWriMo 2013: 10,000 Words Down

Last night I powered over the 10,000 word mark with my NaNo project putting me a day ahead of where I should be. I've been sticking to my plan of writing as much as I can at a time and desperately trying not to stop and over-analyse. Fortunately, I spent a lot of time pondering these characters while I was on holiday - that forethought is helping and I'm enjoying the ride.

Of course, alongside those words I've also half-completed that essay rewrite I've got on. I had to put that on hiatus until the end of the week because I realised I had a supervisor meeting on Thursday and hadn't yet done any fresh thesis work since my last meeting. So yesterday was spent battling through rewriting sections of analysis, by far the most difficult kind of work I could've picked. I'm at my sister's for a few days to help her with the kids and I think I startled her by sitting down with my laptop at three o'clock and barely moving until after midnight. Half that time was spent on PhD work and the other half was NaNo work. It's no wonder I couldn't sleep when I finally went to bed!

I do detect one problem with my novel, though it's not really a problem as such. Regular readers of this blog will know my first drafts generally come in short and I bulk them up. This one may be a bit different. Put it this way - my story spans a fortnight on a cruise ship and after 10,000 words I'm still only on day four. The big events are still to come, they haven't visited a port yet and the romance...well, I'm keeping quiet on that. This could prove to be my longest first draft to date.

As I type this blog I'm being subjected to Bananas in Pyjamas, perils of sick niece sitting. Let's hope I see past this and get some more work done today, both thesis and NaNo kinds!

Grandmother Update: Failure

Regular readers of this blog or my Twitter feed will know what for the past year or so I've been increasingly worried for, and harassed by, my ageing grandmother. It all started in March 2011 when she was moved into sheltered accommodation that I knew wasn't right for her and was really just better for my aunt and uncle. For a while she seemed to like her new place but that changed rapidly, as I'd feared it would, and coincided with a decrease in her mobility. For the past year the phone calls from her have increased to an average of 20 a day, reaching 40 on some memorable occasions. They're confused calls, they're distressed calls and, finally, it has been decreed that she can't stay where she is any more. But the way this has happened has infuriated me.

You see, my aunt was away for most of September in America. Nonetheless, we continued to speak to my grandmother everyday and I continued to calm her down (even when I was away in Birmingham myself). My aunt returned about a week ago and yesterday everything kicked off - there had been disturbances during the night in the accommodation, my grandmother had been lectured by my aunt (which explained the lack of phone calls) and, even more surprisingly, there was a backlog of 'incidents' that the warden had neglected to tell us about.

Yes, despite being listed as the secondary next of kin (and going to see her/calling her/answering the damn phone), the warden didn't think to let us know what was going on, preferring to wait until my aunt got back to talk to her about it. I was astounded. Social services have been brought into the equation before we were. The upshot of this is that she's being moved to a residential home as soon as possible, probably a temporary one before we get her into one we actually approve of.

Now, she wants to go into a home. So she says. She's been angling for it for months, as things have deteriorated between herself and the other residents at the sheltered accommodation. However, her complaints about the accommodation are worrying in this context: she says she feels like she's in a prison and doesn't like being told what to do and having to wait for the carer etc. She doesn't seem to realise that being in a residential home really is like a prison. Just like the reality of sheltered accommodation finally hit, this realisation will hit and there'll be nothing at all I can do about it.

You see, the truth here is that I've failed. It's easier to blame my aunt for pretty much dumping her there and leaving her or criticise my dad's short temper but, really, I've failed. I knew sheltered accommodation wasn't right for her and I allowed myself to be talked round when she was. I've experienced how bad it's been getting and how miserable she is but I've told myself there were no other options. Perhaps there were none now but there were some then, and I let them slip through my fingers.

I know how my grandmother feels. We've got the same anxieties about things being right and worries about what will happen when. Out of all of us, I'm the one who cares the most and understands. So why didn't I understand two years ago? She's an educated woman who hates being surrounded by, I'm sorry to say it, stupid people. That's why she's had difficulty in the sheltered accommodation and I fear it'll be worse in the home.

You never know, I could be wrong. I don't want to be right, I don't want her to suffer any more than she already has done. I hate seeing her cry and look at me like I'm the only friend she's got in the world. I suppose time will tell but, in the meantime, it's fair to say that I failed the one person I'd set out to look after - again. You can always count on me to muck things up, it's a speciality.

Debris

That sinking ship feeling - everyone gets it. When you're clinging to the side and hoping the problems will mysteriously right themselves as you feel the water getting ever closer. At the moment, though, I get the impression my ship has sunk. There I am in the water with debris floating all around me and not sure which direction to try and swim in.

Each section of debris correlates to part of my life right now. One section is that pesky PhD. Coincidentally, that is the section that has broken into the most pieces, scattering fragments far and wide. To put it back together is going to require sustained thought but, as I tread water, I wonder if I'm capable of that.

You see, over there, in the opposite direction, is the grandmother section. Common sense tells me to swim to that bit first because it's sinking. That's what ninety years on this planet does for you but I owe it to her to swim towards her and try to rebuild her life so it's at least bearable. That, however, is a full time job and, while I ponder undertaking it, the jigsaw pieces of my thesis are drifting further and further away from each other. What seems to be happening is that I swim towards one, change my mind, swim back, change my mind again. That's going to keep nothing afloat for long, especially not my tired body.

And, of course, there are other sections of debris, smaller but no less important. Picture novel manuscripts cast along the sea, paper fragments soaking up the water and breaking apart. Picture essays I'm trying to write doing the same, picture groups of people gradually getting further away from me because I can't physically hold on to them and nothing else. Picture my relationship that actually seems to have found a boat and is rowing away from me while I, quite honestly, don't try to follow.

However, perhaps there's hope. In the middle of the darkness I find there's a solitary rock that I can cling on to. It doesn't help me gather the pieces together but it does at least allow me to keep them all in sight. I can make expeditions to the outskirts and try to reassemble the fragments but, when I fail, the rock is still there. There's a lot to be said for that rock. It keeps me afloat when I feel I can swim any more and it makes me realise that I may be out here marooned but I'm not alone and there will be an end to it. It just may take more perseverance and emotional reserves than I gave it credit for when I started out this journey. But at least I'm not alone.

500th Post: A Selection of Under Appreciated Posts

Amazingly, three years after starting this blog I'm still going and I've hit another milestone. 500 posts seems a lot but, apparently, I can waffle for Britain. In the last few months this blog has become more a portal for classic film reviews than anything else. I'm loving exploring these old films and I hope my readers are finding some gems they haven't encountered before. Peppered in amongst these film reviews are book reviews (although I'm not reading for pleasure these days as much as I would wish), the occasional television review, updates on my personal life and my studies and some random thoughts as and when they occur to me.

Today, I wanted to share 25 posts with you that I wish had been read more. Many stem from the early days of the blog and I hope they provide some entertainment to you.

Five Classic Film Reviews

1. Victim - A 1961 film about a homosexual barrister (Dirk Bogarde) seeking out a blackmailer. 
2. Desk Set - A 1957 film where Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy battle over office computerisation. 
3. Lifeboat - A 1944 Hitchcock film about the survivors of a shipwreck - and the enemy in their midst.
4. Sister Kenny - A 1946 biopic of a pioneering nurse starring Rosalind Russell.
5. My Favourite Wife - A 1940 film where Irene Dunne returns from the grave to claim her newly remarried husband, Cary Grant. 

Five Book Reviews

1. Tell It To The Bees by Fiona Shaw 
2. Summer Will Show by Sylvia Townsend Warner 
3. All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West
4. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez 
5. The Scourging Angel by Benedict Gummer 

Fifteen 'Other' Posts

1. 'Does Your Character Have a Political Agenda?' - In which I discuss my laziness. 
2. 'Imitating Greats' - In which I discuss Henry Fielding and share a small sample of my MA work.
3. 'The New Condition of England Novel?' - In which I discuss, shortly after the 2010 election, whether the 'genre' has ever faded. 
4. 'Fear Itself' - In which I discuss how difficult fear is to portray.
5. 'The End. Or Alternatively...' - In which I discuss Dickens, Sweet Charity and altered endings. 
6. 'Be a Curious Clown' - In which I discuss the mysteries of grated cheese amongst other things.
7. 'A Life in Museum Leaflets' - In which I discuss sorting through the cupboards of my grandparents.
8. 'Seconds of Serenity' - In which I discuss rolling down a hill in Austria. 
9. 'Using Profanities - Pure Laziness?' - In which I discuss whether swearing has lost its resonance.
10. 'Regrets? I've Had a Few...' - In which I discuss my fearful personality. 
11. 'The Depths of the Library' - In which I discuss a scary visit.
12. 'Surprising Discoveries in the Early Hours' - In which I discuss finding a present from my late grandfather.
13. 'Some Victoria Wood Optimism' - In which I discuss my favourite song of hers. 
14. 'I Said Love - Or Did I?' - In which I discuss the necessity of spelling out emotions in fiction.
15. 'Some Wise Words - Anne Bronte' - In which I discuss a favourite passage.

Thank you for reading...

The Next Two Weeks

The immediate future looks a bit hectic, as I realised last night staring at the ceiling and cataloguing what I've got to do - and what might get in the way. Things could get quite tricky quite fast.

On the PhD side of things, I need to get my third chapter fully drafted by the end of the month. I have a supervisor meeting on the 30th and by then I want a complete draft so I can make necessary corrections and enhancements over the summer. So I'm looking at perhaps another 6,000 words of analysis. And, really, I have to get that done this week because I'm not going to get much of a chance next week.

Also of importance this week is some secondary reading, which I have to neatly combine with some documentary viewing. I say 'have to' and mean it: our hard disk recorder's close to capacity and my father's going that funny colour which means that if I don't watch some stuff he's going to evict me. I've got a heap of documentaries on there but also some recent drama and too many classic films to count. So it's looking like I'm spending the days this week trying valiantly to create some space on the recorder and the evenings going loopy in my office trying to put words on the page.

Next week, things get a little more complicated. The Wakefield Drama Festival starts on Sunday 26th (preview post here). For seven consecutive nights I'll be at the theatre and, although I'm looking forward to it, I'm dreading the time it will sap. Added to which, I've got the Postgraduate Colloquium all day Tuesday, my supervisor meeting on Thursday and I'm babysitting for a few hours on Friday. The latter two I'm fairly okay with but it's the first that's causing me anxiety.

The organisation of the colloquium has been fairly fun, like trying to keep control of a bike that at first won't let you pedal then doesn't want you to apply the brakes. If I'd stuck to the organising I'd probably have been fine but I'm conscious that I need to give a few papers this year to stick to my goals for 2013. So I've written a paper called 'Edmund Yates: Rumour and the Forgotten Author' which I'm fairly happy with. The only part I'm not happy with is presenting it. My public-speaking fear has kept me awake a few nights recently. There are reasons I'm not cut out for this line of work and I suspect next Tuesday will demonstrate that. If it does, I think a new career plan is in order.

During the drama festival I'm not going to get much PhD work done (which is why this week is so important in that respect). I don't know what I'll do during the two days I'm actually at home that week but it might involve sleeping and, on Monday, plotting to run away.

So what are the variables? Well, apart from my paralysing fear, there's the small matter of my grandmother who has decided that my father doesn't understand her so she needs to talk to me and me alone. That's fine for a few days over the weekend but, given what I've got to do this week, it could soon become a little irritating. I'll try to hold my temper because I really don't want to upset her more but having the same conversations fifteen times a day could drive me round the twist. Also, last week we had five power cuts (including three nights where it was off overnight, leading to some fun times with the dog-that's-scared-of-the-dark). They claim the problem has been fixed but more outages could lead to some epic frustration. As with the grandmother situation, this isn't within my control but it doesn't stop the anxiety. I'm beginning to learn, very little stops the anxiety.

Television Review: The Village

The Village aims to tell the story of a single village throughout the twentieth century. This first series covers on the years 1914-1920 and we focus on the Middleton family - John (John Simm), Grace (Maxine Peake) and their sons, Joe (Nico Mirallegro) and Bert (Bill Jones). Other villagers of importance include the rich Allingham family, vicar's daughter Martha Lane (Charlie Murphy) and schoolteacher Gerard Eyre (Matt Stokoe).

One of main criticisms of this programme is that it is unfailingly grim. In the course of six episodes we had the outbreak of war, shell-shock, alleged desertion, rape by a doctor, suicide, mutilated cows, sick babies, dead children and Spanish flu. Those are only the ones I can remember off the top of my head. However, despite the dreariness, it's difficult to stop watching because it's so brilliantly acted. Maxine Peake has already established herself as one of Britain's most versatile actresses and her performance as Grace merely reiterates that. John Simm is excellent as John, an alcoholic who finds God but is still incredibly difficult to like. Bill Jones deserves praise as young Bert while Nico Mirallegro was heartbreaking in some of his final scenes as Joe. Equally the rest of the cast worked well, especially Juliet Stevenson as Clem Allingham and Augustus Prew as George Allingham.

One aspect of the series irritated me, however. The first five episodes take place over the course of two years but between the fifth and the sixth episode there is a four year jump. This was probably for continuity reasons (they wanted to introduce the next incarnation of Bert before the second series) but it jarred incredibly for me. All the emotion at the end of episode five was left unresolved and, frankly, I think we needed an episode just afterwards to deal with some of that. The cast were certainly up to it so why not? My guess is that apart from the Bert issue they wanted to resolve the war in the first series. Nevertheless, I did get the sensation while watching the sixth episode that I was viewing the first episode of the second series - the viewer was trying to catch-up far too much and scenes which would have been interesting to see (George's successful wooing of Martha, for instance) were ignored. For me, the series lost a little emotional resonance due to this choice.

Will I watch series two? Yes, because I'm invested in a few characters and occasionally there is a scene of absolute brilliance. However, I know several people who have had enough of the bleak atmosphere. I can't say I blame them but this is probably more historically accurate than most programmes set in this era. Finally, it's worth noting that the use of the Peak District scenery is excellent and the score for the series is beautiful. From the opening strains over the first episode I knew I'd carry on watching for the music alone.

An Update On Work/Life

The last time I mentioned my PhD on here was when I discussed my grandmother problems and how they're affecting my ability to study. Sad to say, things are still getting steadily worse in that department. Last week we recorded a very nice 36 calls and 23 messages in one day because she was confused - apparently, we're not too sure really. I escaped to the library for an hour but you have to get a security guard to let you into the toilets. For whatever reason, I can't bring myself to do that so the library's out as a place of refuge. Anyhow, my grandmother's in Blackpool for the week with my aunt so I'm taking the opportunity to get as much work done as I can before it all kicks off again.

So, yes, where am I at with my PhD? Well, I've now got a rough schedule for completion which is...well, scary as hell. Every month is full until next May when, hopefully, my thesis will be in roughly the right shape with all the right bits in and it might even look pretty, though I think that's pushing it a bit. The list of things I have to do is panic-inducing but the main thing for the next five months is to pull chapters three and four together (I'm on with three, haven't the foggiest about four). After that it's a case of revising, fine-tuning, introducing, concluding and going mad - if I can find the time for it.

Writing is allegedly having to take a back seat to all of this. It doesn't feel much like it from what I've been doing. Using that handy list I compiled a while ago about the novels I've been working on, I completed the fifth draft of 'Lily' a few months ago and am waiting for feedback on that. I was quite pleased with the development so I'm ready to be knocked flat on my backside and told I've made it worse. I've also thrown myself into a nuts-and-bolts revision of 'Danni', which is currently standing at around 50,000 words. The worst part of that is the fact that I'm planning ahead for the sixth draft if the fundamental plot changes work as well as I hope they will. No point throwing myself into the nitty-gritty of the novel until I know whether the structure's staying like this - this is attempt number two at changing the background fundamentally.

What else? Well, I started a structural revision of 'Lauren' but I got drawn back into other things after only a few thousand words. I've earmarked that for later in the year. However, I also did what I wasn't supposed to be doing this year and started a new novel ('Izzy'). After a burst of inspiration I'm well into this but I had to break off to do PhD-stuff and so the first draft is sitting there about a third finished, waiting for me to return to it. I'm seeing that as happening when I've finished the 'Danni' redraft.

Of course, what doesn't help is that I was struck with another novel idea last week. I've got the bare bones of it in my head and I want to write it at some point soon. Will it end up being my NaNoWriMo novel? Well, I kind of want to get the draft on paper before that. Which means, in theory, I could end up with three new novel drafts in a year I promised was going to be spent on novel revision. That would be amusing, wouldn't it?

Last week when I had a uni meeting I was asked whether there were any impediments to me finishing my PhD within the time I'd suggested. I said no. I think I lied, don't you? But I've tried to stop writing in the past and that doesn't work. What's a girl to do apart from forego sleep and get the hell on with it all?

At this point I think some wise words from Donald O'Connor are in order...

'It's the smile you smile that counts,

Happy thoughts in large amounts,

Any problem you can trounce,

You can bounce right back...'

Tea, Tea, Tea

Did anyone else watch Victoria Wood's Nice Cup of Tea over two nights last week? I found it very entertaining, particularly the last fifteen minutes or so when Wood was discussing the future of tea - if it has one. The focus group with young people, and deciding whether Lady Gaga was a good advertising technique, got me thinking about when I first started drinking tea and enjoying it.

The two most formative years of my life were between 16 and 18, while I was at college. That was the time I began writing (it might've been only fan fiction but it certainly helped me with things like plotting, dialogue and characterisation so I'm not arguing), it was the time when my passing appreciation of musical film and theatre grew into a love that would prove to be my favourite way of working through...anything. It was also the time I started drinking tea.

Picture it (I suddenly feel like Sophie Petrillo): I would leave home or college (sometimes not actually bothering to attend when I was meant to be) and walk the few miles to my grandparents house. All I had on me besides the essentials was a battered tiny bag containing the A5 spiral-backed notebooks I accumulated full of fan fiction, a pen and possibly my latest 40s era CD. It was quite a walk over there, the final quarter being uphill, stretching past Pinderfields Hospital. That was the moment when I used to deliberately check there was no one behind me and start singing along to whatever track I was listening to at that moment. Frequently, I made sure it was this one:

When I got to the bungalow my grandmother put the kettle on straight away. If I was lucky my grandfather was away on his mobility scooter watching lawn bowls. The perk of this was that we'd be able to watch Murder, She Wrote in the living room instead of sitting on the floor in the bedroom. If I was early I'd have my first cup of tea in my gorgeous koala mug (still my cup of choice when visiting her) at the kitchen table with my notebook open but as soon as this theme music started I was into the living room like a shot, my grandmother already having put the kettle on for a fresh cuppa (with plenty of biscuits) as we watched Angela Lansbury:

Afterwards I retired to the kitchen, with another cuppa, to write and write and write until the time came for me to leave their bungalow and walk the mile or so to my other grandmother's where most of my evenings ended. The amount of writing I got done in those hours, though, was prolific. And you know the funny thing? I never drank tea anywhere else at this point. Not at home, not at my maternal grandmother's, not out in town. It was my special drink for there, made just right.

I started drinking it again at university to get that home feeling. These days I need a drip installed to manage my intake. Years ago I cut out the sugar but I have it quite weak and with a big dribble of milk. There's also an obsession with fruit and herbal teas but that's a post for another day. In the meantime, say hello to Sophia!

(In this post I managed to talk about Victoria Wood, Murder, She Wrote and The Golden Girls - all things that kept me going through those tricky college years!)

Two Odd Encounters

I started thinking last night - no idea why - about two encounters that have become linked in my mind. It's funny the connections you make: A leads to B because of C and, suddenly, you can't think of one without the other. Both these encounters coincided with a 'big day' in my life and both of them involved creatures not normally associated with warm, fuzzy cuddles.

Firstly, there was the night before I went off to Lincoln for my first year at university. I was on edge, especially having just said goodbye to my grandmother (a farewell that would trigger, unfortunately, a rather bad stream of events culminating in her death but that's for another day), and I was sat at my laptop dawdling and putting off going to sleep. I had a high bed in those days, with a desk underneath and a 'bedside' table next to the desk with a purple lamp on it.

Then, suddenly, the lamp started buzzing. I was a little slow off the mark but quickly came to my senses when the wasp buzzed out of the lamp and headed in my general direction. I jumped up, knocking over my can of Coke onto the lampshade and bedside table, and panicked. My inclination was to run away but there was nowhere to run. My dad was asleep and I sort of had to stay in that room. My only option was to catch it and put it out. I think it got killed in the process but that was by accident, not design. When I woke up the next morning I thought I'd dreamed it but, nope, there were the Coke stains on my lamp to prove it. Incidentally, I didn't have time to clean up before I left so there they stayed for two weeks until I came home for a spontaneous weekend.

The second incident happened three years later on the morning of my first day at a company in the North East which shall remain nameless. It's enough to know that they were based in Stockton and I was living in Darlington. I set off ridiculously early to make sure I got an earlier train and just as I was walking down from the town centre towards the railway station something glistened in the dawning light ahead of me. Almost hidden on the bridge on my right there was something scurrying above the water line. A big something. It was the size of an overfed cat but, having had rats as pets, I knew exactly what it was. It looked particularly menacing bathed in orange light. I'll be honest, I didn't want to pass that spot for a few moments and I lingered until I finally realised I'd miss my train if I didn't get on.

These encounters aren't linked apart from the fact they were chance meetings with unexpected creatures and they happened prior to big events in my life. But, with hindsight, it's difficult not to see them as omens of some kind. My first year of uni was...tricky and I made some daft decisions and wrote some dafter essays. That job proved to be a blessing and a curse - it gave me friendship (like my old pet rat Norman did) but it was the place my shyness became an acute problem.

The trouble with us human beings is that we seek meaning in everything. That's probably increased tenfold in writers and avid readers. Everything has to mean something, otherwise what's the point of anything? Unfortunately, that's a question I return to time and again.

Grandmother Update

Last Monday I wrote about my grandmother's latest downward spiral. After those events we had a quiet middle-of-the-week but on Friday things reached - what I wish was - a climax.

In the early hours, about half-past two, I was settling down. I'd had an odd Thursday night full of secondary reading and journal searching that had kept me up then I'd unwound with the final episode of Mayday (don't get me started on how disappointing that was). Anyway, I was just dozing off when I heard the phone ring in my dad's bedroom. We'd put it back there because she'd gone quiet over the previous few days and it needed charging. I hurried down the stairs to find a very confused message on the answering machine from a woman far too alert for half-two in the morning. I called her back, though it took a few attempts because she was engaged. What followed was one of the most bizarre conversation I've had with her.

She was dressed. She said she'd fallen over but couldn't tell me if it hurt anywhere. She told me she'd been wandering - and that she knew she shouldn't have been - and that she fell over outside the flat in the corridor.  Again, I tried to ascertain if she was hurt but what happened next made me doubt the validity of her statement. You see, she said there were two people, a man and a woman, outside in the corridor then she said that they'd come in and were in the bathroom. More alarmingly, she then put the phone down on the table and went to the bathroom to talk to them. I could hear her chattering to herself in the background but it was ages before she remembered me and came back to the phone. She was suddenly anxious about keeping me up and, after extracting a promise from her to go straight back to bed, I was pretty much hung up on. My options at this point were to call the night-number (which I didn't have because my aunt handles all that), call her back (I didn't want to confuse her more) or cross my fingers she'd listen to me. After a long calming-down session I chose the latter, rightly or wrongly.

On Friday I was woken at lunchtime by the warden requesting a call from my dad to arrange a meeting between herself, us and my aunt. After lunch (after I'd got the warden's version of events from my dad) I decided to call my grandmother to check how she was doing. It took her a while to answer the phone and, when she did, there was another peculiar conversation to get through. She'd hurt herself, so she said, and had been crawling on the floor all morning because she couldn't lift herself up.If that wasn't alarming enough I could tell from her voice something wasn't right. Without telling her what I was doing, I gathered all the loose change in the house and made a break for the bus stop, not easy given the way I was feeling myself.

When I got there she was at least on her feet again but she stumbled on her left side. When I sat her down as well, she sat in a very awkward position. The inclination that had driven me over there - a minor stroke - seemed plausible so I went to get the warden. After a lot of discussion we discovered something else alarming on the table - the course of antibiotics meant to last till Sunday were all gone. All of a sudden, that seemed to account for the hallucinations. The warden got onto the doctor for some advice while I inwardly cursed the very same man for giving a confused woman some antibiotics to take on an evening just after putting her on a regime of taking all her pills before breakfast. No wonder she got muddled.

I spent three hours there that afternoon and by the time I left she was considerably more switched on and mobile than when I'd arrived. I think just seeing me helped - and I made sure she ate something too. What the warden thinks - and what we think - is that she needs extra support and that'll be discussed at the meeting, whenever it happens.

I was in quite an unfit state when my dad got me back here on Friday night. Whilst making sure my grandma had eaten I had only had a few biscuits since the night before. I let go of the urge to do something work-related and instead just ate and watched a film before trying to go to sleep. It didn't come easily - I spent a good twenty minutes talking to thin air and crying - but I got there eventually and I slept like a log. Saturday was good too: I had an hour with two of gorgeous nieces with the biggest hugs ever then when me and my dad took my grandma out for her usual meal she seemed fairly okay.

It feels like the storm has reached its peak, for now at least. I'm under no illusions - it will be back and it will probably be worse than ever. All this begs the question of how I continue being productive and getting on with my PhD work as things steadily disintegrate around me. I was fit for nothing all weekend really, recovering and just about managing to focus on words in a book I was reading for pleasure. Some of you might suggest taking it easy but I refuse to 'waste' (I use that word because I know of no other that fits) her money on my PhD unless I'm throwing my all into it. So, once again, I find myself a bit stuck and the only option is to get on with it.

(Note: big thanks needs to go out to the friend who happened to be awake at three am on Friday morning and calmed me down, also had a very nice discussion about spiders and silverfish.)

I feel like poor Gene - it's going to hit but when?! 

More Grandmother Problems

Regular readers of this blog and my tweets will know that I have an elderly grandmother who's gradually requiring more and more attention. Notable posts on this subject are: 'One Personal Sensation Story' and 'Don't Read - You're Too Old!'.

Recently, her capability seems to have slipped steeply. She was suddenly unable to 'deal with' the television and the phone and, most of all, the days when she was forced to leave her flat. She hates it there but she worries about not being ready to go for an appointment to the point where she calls us and my aunt a dozen times in a short period. We have an answering machine which captures the calls while we're eating etc but my aunt doesn't. Equally, while we nearly always answer the phone, my aunt seems to think that ignoring it and getting on with her own life is best. I must admit, the phone calls wear at my patience, particularly the lovely one I had at quarter-past six the other morning, but I'll gladly sleep with the phone in my room if it means that, one, my dad isn't disturbed in the middle of the night and, two, she doesn't get too distressed by not being able to get through to someone.

You see, that's another problem. She's now taken to wandering around the sheltered accommodation in the middle of the night because she's deteriorating to the point where she can't connect what she sees on the clock with reality. If it's still dark outside, she panics. She particularly panics when she's got something on that she thinks she's missed. For example, she had an appointment on a Friday morning. She was being picked up at ten o'clock in the morning but she was so frightened about sleeping in that she had a shower at seven o'clock the evening before, got dressed in her appointment clothes then slept in the armchair in her clean clothes. Inevitably, she woke in the middle of the night disorientated and was caught wandering around (or banged on some doors nearby, we don't know for sure) by neighbours. She's now a source of gossip for people that she didn't really get on with in the first place. She's sobbing down the phone to me daily and there's not a damn thing I can find to do about it.

In order to solve the problem of the television, and thus keep her distracted, me and my dad got her a new remote. It's white and lights up green and only has six buttons - On/Off, Mute, Channel +, Channel -, Volume + and Volume -. It's literally the easiest one on the market but she's still having tremendous difficulty with it. On Sunday lunchtime we got a series of phone calls: she was having trouble with her oven, she said, and she'd thrown away some ready meals. It turned out that she thought the new remote worked her oven (no, I don't know either) and had got herself into a muddle. When we got there we found that she hadn't wasted two meals, she'd wasted five, all her provisions for the week. My dad tried to explain to her where she was going wrong while I repeatedly bashed my head against a cupboard door in the kitchen.

I refuse to do what my aunt does and just not answer the phone. I hate knowing that she's upset most of her waking hours and feels utterly alone. I'll answer the phone when she calls (whilst writing this I've directed her verbally back to BBC 1 when she got muddled) and I'll try and help. But I'm not always here. On Tuesday, for instance, I have a supervisor meeting; I may be down in Birmingham this weekend as well. She won't call my mobile because she can't 'deal with' the long number and I'm worried what's going to happen in my absence. I've got a headache that's lasting weeks at a time but, I have to keep telling myself, that's nothing compared to the way she must be feeling.

Classic Film Review: Holiday Affair (1949)

Holiday Affair is a festive offering that stars Janet Leigh as Connie Ennis, a widow with a young son, Timmy (Gordon Gebert). Connie earns her money as a comparison shopper but she's not very good at it, getting sales clerk Steve Mason (Robert Mitchum) sacked when he neglects to tell his superiors he's sniffed her out. There's an evident attraction between the two but there are a couple of major problems - firstly, Connie is still wedded to the memory of her dead husband and content to style her son in his image; secondly, she has been dating lawyer Carl (Wendell Corey), a dependable man who offers no risk at all.

This is a surprising little film, making even the whirlwind romance angle seem credible. I adore Janet Leigh and this role suits her (even though she does seem a little young to have a six year old son, Leigh was only 22 at the time). Connie's business-like approach to life disintegrates when she encounters Steve, a man who eats his lunch in the park with the seals and feeds a stray squirrel whilst having the goal of moving to California to build sail boats. It's a simple enough choice - the exciting risk or the dependable lawyer - but Leigh's performance doesn't trivialise the decision. Equally, the rapport she has with Gordon Gebert as her son is delightful.

I continue to revise my opinion about Robert Mitchum (disliked him in River of No Return (1954) and His Kind of Woman (1951) but liked him in Heaven Knows, Mr Allison (1957)). He seems very comfortable in Holiday Affair and he and Leigh bounce nicely off each other. Wendell Corey puts in an adequate performance as Carl, reasonably likeable throughout, even when he realises the truth about his relationship.

This is a quiet film on many levels but touching because it deals with very human desires of safety and security. Those are enduring themes and that's what makes this film as enjoyable today as it was when first released. Although the finale may be predictable, it's no less sweeter for it.